Considering the general doom and gloom at the moment, and the struggles of the art world as the UK still grapples with the pandemic, we find ourselves in the slightly surprising position of having our work in three art shows this summer.
Amy- The Postcard Project
Down in That London, there's a group show occurring, which features one of Amy's shots. It's also in a specially published book! There was some doubt about if an actual physical exhibition was going to be possible, but the current easing of restrictions (fingers crossed) should make it possible.
To be honest, we don't know a lot about this gallery/collective, and various reasons mean we're not going to get a chance to go see it either which is a shame, but it's great Amy's been featured as part of the open call.
The shot is from her ongoing 'Flower Abstract' series, digitally-manipulated/kaleidoscopic shots taken in the garden during lockdowns last year, and related to a project she's been doing at work.
Ben- Cupola Gallery 30th Anniversary
The weekend just gone, we paid a visit to our old friends at Cupola Contemporary Art in Sheffield. We can't overstate how much we love this place, and they were one of the first, and certainly the most welcoming, proper gallery we ever showed with after Uni. We've had work in with them off and on for getting on for 12 years now (group shows and a solo show). We had some prints and ceramics in their legendary 'Under The Bed Sale' back in the last two winters, but thanks to the lockdowns and tier systems, this was the first chance we'd had to actually physically visit them (hell, to visit ANY art gallery) since 2019.
The shot chosen is from Ben's 'Engine Shed' series, a selection of photographs done with miniatures and smoke effects, inspired by the paintings of the late David Shepherd. This is actually the first time one of these shots has been in a gallery (they were originally produced for an open call in Manchester, but not chosen for their final selection), though they were featured extensively in an issue of Model Rail magazine in 2019 with an 8-page spread of them.
Cupola are having a show to mark their 30 years in the city, so it's nice to be able to have a piece in with their open call for this exhibition. They're a relatively small gallery, but their impact on the Northern art scene can be measured by the fact that over the last decade whenever we've participated in group shows around northern England, we've regularly chatted to people who've worked with Cupola at some point in their practise, from painters in Northumberland, to wood-turners in North Yorkshire, to jewellery-makers in the Lake District.
Ben- Inflate-Deflate
Finally, though properly on the summer theme, a selection of four shots from Ben's 'Inflate-Deflate' series, another long-runner of a project of abstract shots using summer toys. Images from the various iterations of this project have been shown in the past in galleries or in art mags, this time they're showing in an art exhibition at a play centre in Chapelcross, Leeds. Not a traditional gallery, but it seems the colourful, fun aspect should fit in nicely there.
In fact this seems to be the best context the images work in; one of the best-received shows we ever had a hand in organising was the one in the above pic, which featured a variety of seaside-themed artworks, pictures, and so on, in the lounge space of a café I (Ben) used to work at. As a venue we showed artwork regularly, but this summer show was unashamedly about fun and enjoyment, which is why we filled the space with ball-pools, summer toys, and magnetic fishing games and so on. The 'Inflate-Deflate' series seems to work well in that context of fun and play, and sounds like it should do much the same at this play centre in Leeds.
There's potentially something else in the pipeline too, hopefully more on that in a future post...
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